THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT USED SOME OF THE STERNEST LANGUAGE THAT DIPLOMACY ALLOWS ON THURSDAY AS IT CONDEMNED A WHITE HOUSE PROPOSAL TO SEND SOLDIERS TO THE CANADA-U.S. BORDER.
‘No justification’ based on public health concerns
WASHINGTON • The federal Liberal government used some of the sternest language diplomacy allows Thursday as it condemned a White House proposal to send soldiers to the Canada-u.s. border, ostensibly to keep illegal migrants from spreading COVID-19.
Canada has argued “forcefully” against the idea, said Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who was reluctant to characterize the status of the proposal — first reported by Global News — beyond saying a U.S. decision “has not yet been acted upon or fully taken.”
But Freeland, who is normally pointed in refusing to conduct private negotiations in public, made clear that the idea is not finding favour in Ottawa.
“Canada is strongly opposed to this U.S. proposal and we have made that opposition very, very clear to our American counterparts,” she told a media briefing in the national capital.
Indeed, it may never come to pass, she suggested: countries around the world, including Canada, have been responding with uncharacteristic speed and urgency to an escalating global emergency — a process that involves discussing any and all measures, no matter how drastic, even if they don’t come to fruition.
“We understand the concerns about the coronavirus, we share those concerns very much,” Freeland said.
“What we have said is, ‘We really do not believe at all that there would be a public-health justification for you to take this action, of course it’s up to you to decide for yourselves.’ And we’ve said we really don’t think this is the right way to treat a trusted friend and military ally.”
The two countries already have a mutual ban in place on non-essential travel, but the movement of trade, commerce and cross-border workers has been allowed to continue — a clear indication that both Ottawa and the White House have embraced the economic importance of avoiding a complete shutdown at the border.
“Canada and the U.S. have the longest unmilitarized border in the world, and it is very much in both of our interests for it to remain that way,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during his own daily appearance outside Rideau Cottage in Ottawa.
It is no secret, however, that President Donald Trump has long been seized with securing his country’s southern border with Mexico, and has recently been talking about fortifying those efforts under the pretence of protecting Americans from the novel coronavirus.
“We will continue to consider additional actions to ensure federal law enforcement personnel at our borders have the resources and operational support needed to address the profound public health threat of uncontrolled cross-border movement during a pandemic,” the Trump administration said in a statement attributed to a senior official.
Over the course of fiscal 2017, the most recent year for which data is available, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended only 3,000 illegal immigrants along the Canada-u.s. border — just one per cent of the U.S. total.